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​ 5 ways to maintain a work-life balance

Whatever the case may be, you should, to put it quite simply, feel balanced in your life and you shouldn’t feel compelled to read an article on how to maintain a work-life balance.

Below are some tips to ponder upon if you’re feeling out of whack.

Find a job that pays enough so that you can afford to have a life outside of work

If as much as 80 per cent of your net monthly income gets swallowed up by rent every month, then you won’t get to do many activities in your spare time apart from staying in your rented dwelling, right?

Of course, having sufficient spare time is essential for maintaining a good work-life balance, but it is equally important to have sufficient funds to be able to spend your spare time as you desire. Because work-life balance/integrity is not just about wading through tons of free time but also about filling it with memorable experiences and doing what makes you happy.

Learn to love your job/work/career

As a rule of thumb, the more you love the professional side of your life, the higher the likelihood that the whole work-life balance concept will lose its meaning for you.

It’s because people who are happy at work tend to be less stressed overall (or at least they’re positively stressed) and they don’t see Friday as the light at the end of the tunnel.

Unless you inherited millions or won a lottery, there’s really no way to cut corners and even workers with a more flexible schedule like freelancers and startups work their asses off (these guys actually tend to have a poorer work-life balance). Yes, almost everybody works and the true path to happiness doesn’t lie in always doing what you like, but rather in liking what you do. Realizing this will help you become more relaxed in your daily working life and you’ll finally stop counting down the hours until home time.

Can’t stand your job regardless? Then use your spare time to prepare for that important career move.

Pick a company that offers amazing work-life balance

When applying for new jobs, take a careful look at what your potential employer offers in exchange for your hard work and whether they have reputation for encouraging work-life balance.

If good work-life balance means the world to you, you can even take a shortcut in this regard and look specifically into businesses with best work-life balance; job search engine Indeed compiled a list of the employers offering their employees the best work-life balance in the UK. The winners came from all sectors, which means that offering a good work-life balance is not the exclusive domain of one category of businesses.

Now just to get hired by one of those companies!

Choose friends/partners who are equally busy

If you’re the type of person who likes to stop and smell the roses, then pairing up with a hard-core workaholic may disturb your work-life balance and may make you wrongly assume that you’re some sort of a slacker. For the record, no, you’re not a slacker, you just need to spend more time with someone who appreciates the simple things in life, like you do.

Ask yourself “What do I really want?” every now and then

The naked truth is that no one will answer this question for you and there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to maintaining a work-life balance. Some people do genuinely enjoy being workaholics and forgetting to eat, for example, while others might find this lifestyle mildly self-destructive. Knowing thyself is key to living a balanced life.